Monuments of the early church (1901) (14803401553)

Identifier: monumentsofearly00lowr (find matches)

Title: Monuments of the early church

Year: 1901 (1900s)

Authors: Lowrie, Walter, 1868-1959

Subjects: Christian antiquities Christian art and symbolism Church architecture Church history -- Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600

Publisher: New York, The Macmillan Company London, MacMillan & Co.

Contributing Library: New York Public Library

Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

Text Appearing Before Image:

in the fourth century as applied to theBible. The substitution of the codex for the roll was largelydue to the use of the Christian Scriptures as books of reference,and this change in itself must have served to encourage, or atleast facilitate, the illustration of manuscripts. The develop-ment of this art was, however, more positively due to thegrowing interest in the interpretation of the Biblical text. Itis not likely that in the early period the whole Bible was ever 334 riCTOBIAL ABT illustrated; at all events we have examples only of particularsections of the Scriptures, as, for instance, the Pentateuch andthe Gospels. The art of Biblical miniature painting has a history of a thou-sand years, and in all of that long period it suffered less changethan any other art. Nevertheless, the early miniature paint-ing was distinguished in many ways from that which prevailedduring the Middle Ages. The aim of the latter was chieflydecorative, and it was closely incorporated with the text; the

Text Appearing After Image:

Fig. 146. — Miniature from the Jo.shua Koll of the Vatican. men of Ai. Fifth century. Joshua and the illustrations were incidental to the embellishment of a title-page, of an initial letter, or of the margin. Of the early illus-trated manuscripts none so closely approaches this mode oftreatment as the Gospel codex executed by a Syrian monk.Rabulas, in the sixth century. In particular, the architecturaldecoration which frames the Eusebian Canons, which are incor-porated in this codex, seems to be the model of many of thedecorative manuscripts of the Middle Ages. There is, in fact,good reason to suppose that the manuscripts which were copiedand illuminated in the schools of Charlemagne, and which setthe fashion for all later work, were directly derived fromSyrian originals. MINIATUBES 835 In general, however, the early miniatures were separatedfrom the text, although they constituted a continuous commentupon it. Their aim was strictly illustrative, and it is worthyof remark that, notw

joshua roll bav palat grec 431 monuments of the early church 1901 book illustrations architecture churches medieval architecture ancient history antiquities symbolism religion christianity images from internet archive new york public library

1901

New York Public Library

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